‘The Mandalorian’ Episode 3 Recap: Conan The Mandalorian

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The Mandalorian

Episode 3 of Disney+’s The Mandalorian, “The Sin,” owes more to Robert E. Howard’s “Conan the Cimmerian” mythos than Kazuo Koike’s “Lone Wolf and Cub.” It provides more flashes of the presumed murder of his parents, the razing of his village and his Moses-like (and Superman-like) escape and eventual rebirth as foundling and hero/savior. It’s about his rebirth in other ways, too, as he turns in his quarry, the instantly meme-worthy and plush-toy-able Baby Yoda to his client (Werner Herzog) in exchange for enough of the precious Beskar Iron to smelt a new set of armor. The Armorer (Emily Swallow) introduced in the first episode does just that, asking what signet she should include in its design. It’s a lot and already, this early into the show, there already appears to be a fatal weakness in this need to provide a complicated backstory along with fan-pleasing Easter eggs and action sequences primarily patterned around Spaghetti Western showdowns, sniper sequences and desperate stand-offs. It’s a cumbersome thing to marry four disparate pulp mythologies: Howard’s, Koike’s, Sergio Leone’s and George Lucas’s, and this episode shows the strain of it.

A showdown between our Mandalorian and others of his kind suggest a kind of resentment of the recently-felled Empire that’s not covered in the animated Clone Wars series that is to date the most extensive canonical work on planet Mandalore and its people. An offhand mention of a planet called “Karnak” suggests that the Young Jedi novels might be folded into canon now – just like the Holiday Special is called out in the pilot – or not. The references in the first and third episodes of The Mandalorian are so scattershot they’re meaningless. Confusing for the fanatic, they will be confusing for the casual fan, too. In the end, it’s all just distracting noise. The brilliance of the last episode was its ability to incorporate its references into the storyline. Jawas in a crawler, saddled with another R5 unit we presume has a bad motivator unit, is the kind of in-joke that doesn’t get in the way. This episode feels bloated by comparison and, in moments like the one where the door sentry says what sounds like “Haku” (a reference to Spirited Away? to the Maori who are clearly the model for the Mandalorian race?) it begins to feel like “The Sin” has outsmarted itself.

When The Mandalorian focuses on the moral awakening of a deeply-shaded character, it teases at its potential. The best sequence is a wordless one in which our hero, freshly decked out in silver armor that would inspire any number of Camille Paglia think-pieces, makes the decision to go back for the little thing that “didn’t know I was his enemy.” For a show that refuses to reveal its main character’s face, it’s moments like this, composed all of Kabuki and the Kuleshov Effect, that have the best chance to resonate. The extended rescue sequence feels repetitive and, in a kill that sees the Mandalorian burning one of his enemies to death, it becomes needlessly cruel. The taste of it lingers into and sours a scene that should delight as the bounty hunter’s guided wrist rockets make an appearance. Its resolution, a sort of deus ex Mandalorians plays flat. The pace is off and what should be a stirring moment strikes the wrong tone entirely. It feels like there are pages of exposition missing which is troubling for an episode already bogged down by too much of it. If the action was meant to peanut butter over the gaps, it needed to be better.

This series represents the first time an African-American, Rick Famuyiwa, and an Asian-American and woman, Deborah Chow, get the directorial reins to a live action Star Wars product. It’s a watershed moment and at least partially redemptive of a franchise hammered for its relative lack of diversity behind the camera. This third episode, directed by Chow, is arguably the weakest, but it’s also asked to do the most in setting up a hero’s journey at the very instant the hero decides to be a hero. She handles his moral awakening sensitively and delivers another great emotional moment, later, as he gazes upon his charge as the world comes down around them. She can do the quiet moments that build empathy and stakes, it’s fair to wonder if anyone can juggle all the world-building and fan-pleasing that comprise the rest of the show for anything other than just an adequate result. Like its hero, The Mandalorian is at a crossroads now as it goes into its halfway point. Its table set, it can choose to be the X-Files obsessed with its mythology to the detriment of quality; or it can be the X-Files one-offs which count among their number a few of the best hours of genre television. I hope it chooses wisely.

Walter Chaw is the Senior Film Critic for filmfreakcentral.net. His book on the films of Walter Hill, with introduction by James Ellroy, is due in 2020. His monograph for the 1988 film MIRACLE MILE is available now.